Philippians 3:20-21 (NLT) - “But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.”

Watch this scene from the movie Risen where Clavius meets Jesus resurrected, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5JtCpDi2Bc.

When we consider key moments of salvation history (creation, incarnation, redemption), we realize how much God cares about embodied existence (cf. T. George, “What Do We Gain from a Bodily Resurrection?”). Christ could have been raised as pure Spirit, but he had a body that the disciples could recognize and touch. He could have had a body that was absolutely pristine, yet his wounds from the crucifixion remained.

I’ve always wondered why Jesus kept his wounds on his resurrected body. Will we have scars that remain on our resurrected bodies? As kids, we used to brag about our scars, and each scar told a story. Jesus’ wounds tell the story of salvation, our salvation. We’ll all want to touch his hands, his feet and side when we see him in heaven! Will we have scars that tell the salvation story… moments of self-giving or self-sacrifice? I think of James, the brother of Jesus, whose knees were calloused and hardened like those of a camel from so much time spent in prayer. Or of Mother Teresa and her famously disfigured feet from wearing ill-fitted shoes. Upon receiving donations of footwear, she would always defer to her sisters, allowing everyone else to find their proper sizes before taking what was leftover for herself.

Rejoice that in Christ our lives matter! What we do here and now can have significance in eternity! Rejoice in the Lord!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkZkeyu6a3k&index=8&list=PLPHfTWQ26S5y9zYrhYffO7R6lfLUyfSgP

-JP